Nottingham be a town,' shouted a great burly giant, round-headed, black-bearded and curled, in a jerkin, soaked and stained-a model of coarse, unhesitating, overbearing strength, yet not without a manly comeliness and a manly good-humour. He was a marked man, and his subordinates took up his verdict with boisterous enthusiasm-'No mock-weavers-Down with the molly-coddles-Up with Rowley the sheepYo-ho!' And the work of destruction

master.

began.

There was a rush at the frail loom. Why, the tenth of them might have done it; and wrenched bars and pins, cracked wood and twisted iron-till the whole measured, much meditated frame, the student's feat-collapsed before the onslaught, a shapeless ruin.

6

William Lee gave a slight shudder, as if his own bones were racked, and a shrill woman's voice cried despairingly, For which of his good works do you stone him?' That-with the wail of the scared children from the room below-that was the rioters' music.

The host looked for a moment in silence, as if content with their success; then the shouts rose again, violent, irregular, exciting; they bantered and boasted each other they gazed around in search of more fuel for their fire-they commenced to glare on the pale, erect student, unbound and ungagged, yet their spectator, and his faithful wife, when their chief, Rowley the sheep-master,

leapt upon a bench, and addressed them with much gesticulation, and eloquence congenial to them. It needed not much depth or delicacy to comprehend Rowley; but, on the other hand, Rowley did what he said, and that was, to strike the nail on the head in this quarter.

'My mates, our job is finished, and I just think we've finished this stocking-weaving for a while. Don't you agree with me? There, there, don't bellow until you bring down the roof on our heads, and it is pretty ricketty for the shelter of such a woundy smart mechanician-we want no more.' (A thin, keen, cruel voice from a mouth that would have spat fire if it could-'We want the jackanape's fine flesh and blood.') 'No, no, we don't,' growled Rowley, frowning terribly. There's not much of that commodity, and you all know I would not have come with you to-night to rob and murder a defenceless lath of a bookworm. Let 'em live, say I; let 'em live. I've no complaint against the gentry or the scholars-I'll not meddle with them if they don't meddle with me. But let 'em keep their own places; don't let 'em put their white hands-look at them, lads, they are as white as those of the mistressalthough they're chapped a bit, and notched here and there with slips of the chisel, and hammer, and saw; they'd been in a worse pickle if they had tried the stone-masonry, and let the mell crush them flat as cakes. Let him keep 'em to turn the pages of his books, and try no more weaving, or ploughing,

or tan, or anvil work. He may go to sea like lost Sir Hugh-he was a brave billy-or take to the greenwood, after bold Robin; but I say he's but a pickthank if he meddles with our trades, or aims to out-crow us in them, and deserves but a pickthank's fate—and he'll meet it, too, without mistake. I suppose all labour comes the same to him, with his plaguy brains; but force is something, ay, force is something, as he sees to-night: and I warn him, quite politely, like a gentleman and a courtier, with my cap in my hand-there, that he'd better not rear again what we have demolished, not within the marshes of Nottingham, not within the bounds of England, or I wis we'll be compelled to circumvent him in another way, that I'll swear he'll not forget. No offence, Dr. Lee; resign thy capriccios, hearken like a Solomon ready to receive instruction, and be an honest man for the time to come. Now, my bully weavers, let us be off, and leave the dame to sweep up the rubbish, and make it serve for her couvre-feu every night this month. What, you are of a different mind? But I tell thee I wonnot suffer more mischief; look ye, I wonnot. We'vo maintained our rights and quelled an invasion, and zounds, that is enough;' and in spite of many and loud murmurs, and swayings of the mass hither and thither, Rowley, by sheer tyranny in the name of justice, wrenched off his mob, and rid the Lees' house of intruders, and left it without any vestige of outrage, save the mud and mire of numbers of hob

nailed shoes, the wreck of the loom, and the pale despair on the faces of the inmates. Oh, Will, Will,' lamented Cicely, 'the bravest, and most skilful gentleman, who was minded to be their teacher and benefactor-the most excellent machine, curious, and finished, and fit to work a revolution, and no more of it left than a few spars, scarce worth splitting up into firewood. To use you so, my Will; out upon the vile pack.'

But Lee, though gloomy and incensed, was not cowed he was neither melted by the sight of his wife's tears, nor inflamed by her wrath-he stood yet self-contained, unconquered. 'Stay your lamentation, good wife,' he exclaimed, almost impatiently; they have not even slain the man here, and they cannot kill the idea any more than the foreigners could stab the memory that we wot of. Fie, fie, dame; what, whimper for a few rascals who have baulked me once of my gains! My arm, though it is neither so lusty nor so deft as I would have it, will play its part again with good-will and merrily. If my arm be torn from the socket, my tongue will direct another and an abler arm; if my tongue be plucked out and my head punched past redemption, none the less the thought lives and will do its duty, and seek an outlet, and make a path and overcome all obstacles. God's mercy, Cicely, these very fellows will turn and use it-it is create, and it cannot be uncreate neither for them nor for me.'

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE COURT SUIT.

LEAD thy cause to the Queen, carry thy difficulties to the Protector of the Realm, work within the shadow of the throne, and no man will dare say straw to thee,' advised Cicely, when-staunch and stubborn as the man's nature

was

-he paused, harassed by hints and plain threats of fire and sword, injury to house and property, wife and children, if he indulged in the pestilent contumacy of reconstructing his stocking-loom-a piece of independence which, with all his caution and Cicely's care, and Diccon's being flattered and frightened into mouse-stillness, he could not conceal from his enemies, pledged to penetrate his privacy, and revenge his disobedience to their illegal authority and despotic and intolerable prohibition.

'The magistrates be leagued against thee, Will; they will wink at any outbreak, and they may first win the ears of Sir William and the Lord Earl. Address none lower-get word of the Queen.'